My Creative Cup of Tea

September 02, 2025

#MCCOTVoices {7}

Jo Riis-Hansen

Copenhagen

Denmark

PERSONAL JOURNEY

I was brought up with the belief that I could become anything I wanted. Looking back, I think this

is the most dangerous fairytale you can tell a child. I entered adult life convinced that if I just

wished hard enough, the universe would answer and it wanna would fall from the sky. Of course,

reality was different. I started a business with no knowledge of finance, economics, or trade. I

was naïve enough to believe that if I only worked endlessly and held fast to my vision, life would

deliver.

I set myself grand goals. I wanted to be the best in my field. I wanted admiration, acknowledgment, and money. For years, I worked with every ounce of energy I had, certain that

if I just pushed a little further, success would come.

But there is a price to living this way. Stress became my shadow, my constant companion, and I

had no tools to soothe it. My upbringing had never prepared me for the pressure of the career I

had chosen. Slowly, I entered my first real life crisis: the devastating discovery that I was not built

for a life of endless striving. The harder I tried, the more drained I became.

At the same time, I had two small children. And just as with my career, I wanted their lives to be

flawless. I longed to be the most composed, graceful mother. I dressed them in dusty pastels,

followed every piece of advice on healthy food and proper play, and drove myself to exhaustion

trying to perfect every detail.

Looking back, I think all my yearning for approval grew from feeling out of place as a child. I was

raised in a commune in Copenhagen in the 1970s, surrounded by ideals of freedom, creativity,

and harmony. The adults around me believed in living slowly, in finding joy in simplicity, in

personal freedom.

It was a childhood built on the dream of balance. And yet, surrounded by so many voices and opinions, it often felt intrusive. Like most children, I longed for escape. I dreamt of pink Barbie dresses, of glamour, of ambition. At the same time, I felt ashamed of being the hippie kid. I didn’t know the social rules others took for granted. Even simple things, like eating with a fork and knife, I had to teach myself. The embarrassment of being uneducated pushed me to work harder, to fight for a sense of being right.

My first business was a small jewelry shop in Copenhagen. I created what I loved: tiny series,

custom pieces for private clients. But restlessness and ambition kept me impatient. That kind of

work is difficult to scale, so I launched a more fashion-oriented jewelry company. We produced

abroad, designed seasonal collections, and launched several times a year. The company

became a huge success, changing the way jewelry was seen. Suddenly, fine jewelry was treated

almost like an accessory, widely available, and we produced in whatever quantity the market

demanded, never asking ourselves if this was a sustainable way of creating.

In my core, I am a sculptor. I need to shape directly in metal and wax, to let my hands speak

before the drawings. Reducing design to technical drawings cut me off from the very pulse of my

craft, and slowly my creativity seeped away. I hadn’t understood how essential it was for my

well-being to work in this physical, direct way. It was like vitamins for my body and soul, and

without it, something vital inside me withered.

And one day, I simply broke. It was as if someone had turned off the light inside me. I couldn’t

leave the house. I called my business partner of ten years and said: I am not coming back, not

ever again. Count me out. In one phone call, I walked away from everything I had built, and I left

with nothing.

The collapse did not stop at work. My marriage also came undone. In hindsight, it makes sense. I

had built a life on impossible standards, and when the foundation cracked, everything above it

crumbled too. Yet strangely, the crisis also held a kind of clarity. I think it was life’s way of forcing

me onto a truer path.

For as long as I can remember, I had demanded of myself to be almost superhuman in my

integrity. I wanted to always be the bigger person, the graceful one. Even when large companies

copied my designs, I told myself to stay calm, to kill my enemies with kindness, to never show

anger. But the truth is, watching someone steal your creativity is like watching your children

being taken from you. It wounds you deeply. For years I swallowed that pain. I pretended to be

composed, to be untouchable. The problem is, I am human. And sometimes, a very angry little

one. Through my divorce, I finally allowed myself to feel that anger, to rage, to sulk, to be

imperfectly human. Accepting those darker sides has turned out to be one of the most liberating

things I have ever done.

After the collapse, I was paralyzed. For half a year I did nothing. I couldn’t even look at my

workbench. The thought of creating another piece of jewelry made me feel sick. It was as though

my creativity had abandoned me. Eventually, I signed up for a ceramics course. I had never

touched clay before, so I had to surrender to being terrible at it. For two years I played with it without expectation, only trying to mend myself. Slowly, the desire to create jewelry returned.

Financially, it was a disaster, no salary, no security. But I came to understand it as the price of

having ignored my own needs for so long. I had driven myself into the ground chasing a dream

that, in truth, was never mine.

What I know now is that whenever I push myself too hard, creativity vanishes. I used to dream of

being the kind of person who could thrive in endless work, who could stay calm in chaos and

shine under pressure. But that is not who I am. The harder I try to be someone else, the faster

my inspiration disappears. So I have learned: I must live differently. I must slow down. I must

rest. I still struggle with relaxation. I am still embarrassed by my imperfections. But I am in

progress. And I finally know my end goal: to feel safe and at peace in my work, to choose what is

true for me, and not to run after everything that glitters.

My batteries recharge slowly. If I work on weekends, my week collapses. It has taken years to

understand that my creativity depends not on hours worked, but on how deeply I have rested. My

best pieces come when my head is emptied, when silence makes space for something new.

After a lifetime in the city, I have bought a house in the countryside. For years the thought

terrified me. I imagined boredom, isolation, and missing out. But the reality has surprised me. I

find joy in silence, I feel blessedly detached from the noise. I still need the city, but now time

away makes it easier to hear myself, to set boundaries and just breathe.

So navigating change, for me, is no longer about ambition. It is about peace of mind. It is about

treating myself with kindness and respect. And it is about remembering, always, that without rest,

there is no creativity. I have now found a way back to almost where I started, and I am at the

moment working on a relaunch of some of my very first work. I have redesigned some of my

oldest designs, and I find great pleasure in finding my way back to the beginning.

I often ask myself if I regret that I took such a big detour, but honestly I do not. I am just so grateful for all of the mistakes I never have to repeat. And I am so excited about giving myself a new start. I would,

after all, never have been here without this journey.